


End Of The Line

by hidley



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 13:35:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1552307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidley/pseuds/hidley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When your soulmate dies, the mark on your skin reacts to the loss and burns you from the inside in the worst pain imaginable. The process is slow and it is taboo for anyone to be around during it, as it is a major part of the grieving process. Washington dies before he and Tucker ever meet, and Tucker is left to go through the withdrawal process alone. Is Tuckington, but completely from Tuckers POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End Of The Line

When Tucker's mark first started burning, it was in the middle of a huge fucking bloodbath.

The sudden flare of heat on his neck made him flinch, and it was enough for the guy he was up against to take him off guard and floor him. His sword flew out of his hand and landed a few feet away, sparking energy disappearing the moment it hit the floor.

His rifle was no good on his back, but he hadn't thought he would need it. He carried it around mostly for appearances. If he had his sword on him, what was even the point in carrying other weapons?

For times like this, he realised bitterly, as the man above him slammed the butt of his shotgun into the side of his head and he went out cold.

 

When he woke up three weeks later in Blue base at Valhalla, the burning had gone from his neck and instead had gathered and intensified directly in his shoulder.

He felt someone grab him as he howled at the pain of it from the moment he regained consciousness, completely unaware of the stab of a needle in his arm, and the mercilessly slow retreat back into oblivion.

* * *

 

'You shouldn't have done that.'

'But he was in pain!'

'He's going to be in pain no matter what we do. Doing that only made it worse.'

'But he's okay now! He's sleeping.'

'Yeah, and when he wakes up, it won't have gone away. There's nothing he or we can do and he's going to have to live with it for the rest of his life.'

'I don't like this.'

'It's a tragedy, son. You aren't supposed to like it.'

* * *

 

The next time Tucker woke up, he spent four hours screaming.

The chemical reaction taking place underneath his skin was ripping his shoulder to shreds, tearing apart muscle and nerve in search for something it would never find. Information about what had happened to him hadn’t even reached his brain yet, all immune and electrical responses being drawn to the scar burning its way through bone and muscle, taking all the energy from its host and the machine it was hooked up to fuse with Tucker’s flesh, and with every second that went by, it buried itself deeper and deeper.

No one was allowed into the base. No Blue, Red or Medic in the whole canyon. The hollow, exposed structure had been abandoned, fled from before the process had even started. No man would want to be around something like this.

The halls echoed with it. The space outside vibrated and broke under the sound of Tucker's pain. It carried across the expanse of space down to the other side of the ravine, circling around Red base, also abandoned, and back again, as if searching for someone.

Up on the cliffs, deep inside one of the hundreds of hidden caves, Caboose sat, hidden inside a gap in the rock, crying silently behind his helmet, and fiercely rubbing the mark on his arm, one shaped like a Greek letter. One that had burnt itself out years before, but that he never stopped trying to treat.

The pain in it still throbbed, but so far inside his own mind of denial was he that he no longer felt it.

Closer outward, the Reds sat huddled on the floor, three of them sitting close together against a wall with the leader standing with a rifle in his hands, staring out towards the noise, willing to face it. The scar on his wrist was still faintly painful, burned out half a lifetime ago with the rest of his civilian mind, and surrounded by smaller, angry cuts that had worked to cut the mark out so long ago.

They would all come down in the days to come. Return to their bases silently and not talk for weeks after that. Caboose would stay close by the Reds, following them around and sleeping on their floor until he was brave enough to go back to his own side of the canyon, and even then he would take him half a day to stumble and backtrack his way from one side to the other. Although the sound of his friend's agony would have ceased by then, the memory of it would terrify him into silence for months.

Inside the Blue base, he would find Tucker, armour all over the floor, him having ripped it off in his desperate attempts to free himself, pressed into a corner with his fingernails drawing blood from his cheeks as he clawed at them desperately.

Caboose would start crying again, but not make any sound as he goes to the medical bag and pulls out bandages and rubbing alcohol that he takes to Tucker and gives to him, murmuring how he doesn't know how to do it himself, Church never taught him how.

Tucker will say in a voice so empty that Church is dead and that Caboose will never see him again and that he is glad for it because it means that he won't be the only lost soul in this canyon.

Caboose will choose not to have heard him and will continue to gently push the medical equipment into Tucker's bloody hands. Eventually Tucker's hands will drop and Caboose will step back as his friend picks up the bottle of rubbing alcohol and smashes it against the wall.

Only then will he start to shake, telling himself to leave the glass all over the floor, to not worry about Tucker stepping in it because he already knows it is dangerous. He doesn't need to be told, not like Caboose does. Only then will he leave, making sure to go around the mess and curl up on his bunk in his room, his hands clamped over his head as Tucker starts screaming again, but this time not in pain. He'll lie, his helmet still firmly locked into his armour, murmuring to himself.

'Church'll help him. Church'll stop him shouting. Church'll be here soon...'

* * *

 

Blue base is silent the next morning. The Red's debate with each other about whether they should tell Caboose they are leaving. Donut wants to. Grif doesn't say anything. Sarge tells them they won't. Simmons comforts Donut as he cries into his chest.

They leave. No one hears from the two Blue Privates, and eventually people come to clear up the mess left behind.

Both bases are empty.


End file.
